Cat missing for 12 years found after friend recognized her pet on Facebook

• Artie the cat disappeared from his home in Wales in 2012
• The feline reappeared in a garden near its former home in 2024, 12 years after its disappearance
• A microchip and a Facebook post helped reunite Artie with his original owner

Facebook helped an elderly cat reconnect with the family she had missed for 12 years.

According to SWNS, Artie, the indoor-outdoor cat and pet, failed to return home to Connah's Quay, Wales, one night in 2012 and remained missing after that fateful evening.

The animal's family spent months searching for the feline after it went missing, but after six months of rigorous searching, they found nothing and began to lose hope.

“After six months I reached the point where I thought either something had happened to him or someone else had taken him in,” said Theo-Will McKenna, one of the cat's owners. , at SWNS.

It's unclear how Artie the cat spent his time between 2012 and 2024, but in May this year the feline appeared in a garden near his former residence in Connah's Quay.

The garden owners took Artie to a local veterinarian to have him scanned for a microchip. The vet found a microchip containing outdated contact details of his owners and information about his original home, North Clwyd Animal Rescue (NCAR).

“He showed up in their backyard and stayed there for four days. He didn't leave at all, he just stayed there,” McKenna said of Artie's reappearance. “They picked him up and took him to the vet, who scanned his microchip. The microchip was still registered to my mother at our old address in Blaken, but NCAR always remained on the microchip as a secondary contact .”

Once NCAR received a call about Artie, they picked the animal up from the vet and posted photos of the feline on Facebook, hoping to find the cat's owner.

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A friend of McKenna's saw the post and recognized Artie as their pal's long-lost pet. The friend sent the information to McKenna.

“It took me a second to recognize him because he looked very scruffy and skinny,” the pet owner said of seeing Artie again. “It didn't seem real. I thought it couldn't be him.”

“It's been 12 years – he disappeared when I was 17. I thought no cat could survive 12 years on the street,” McKenna added.

According to McKenna, NCAR was “absolutely brilliant” in rescuing Artie and helped the cat clean up before returning home.

“They did some medical work on him – took out some teeth, treated his hyperthyroidism and removed some precancerous bumps in his ears,” McKenna told SWNS.

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Artie is now back living with McKenna and his owner's new feline. The felines live together peacefully and Artie seems grateful to be back in a loving home.

“He purrs every time I go near him,” McKenna said.

The cat lover added that he was determined to keep Artie, now 16, as long as he could, including covering the expensive and ongoing medical care the cat now requires.

McKenna started a fundraiser to help cover some expenses and was led to receive enough money to cover months of Artie's medical bills.

The owner said the funds will allow Artie to spend his final years “somewhere he is loved – which will be here.”